Meritocracy and Its Cultured Despisers (Part III)
10th October 2021
Tom Veal does a deep dive.
Part I of this series looked at the original, pejorative meaning of the term “meritocracy” and the criticism directed at it by the term’s coiner, the English Baron Young of Dartington. What he meant by “meritocracy” might have been better labeled “sapientocracy”, rule by individuals of high natural intelligence. Part II examined the more recent, broader attack on a somewhat different notion of “meritocracy”. Progressive anti-meritocrats reject merit itself. It is unfair, they contend, to reward people for being “better on the merits” than others, because those merits ultimately derive from external circumstances, most notably the genes, upbringing and education passed on by successful fathers and mothers to their offspring. Worse yet, when preference is given to merit, competition ensues, blighting the lives of the competitors.